The invention relates to a hand mixer hand mixer having a housing, and having drive means, which are accommodated in the housing and which serve for rotationally driving two mixing tools, which mixing tools are detachably coupled to the drive means and are disengageable from the drive means, and having disengaging means, which are accommodated in the housing and which are movable between a rest position and a disengaging position and which serve for disengaging the mixing tools from the drive means, and having speed switching means, which are accommodated in the housing and which serve for switching the speed of the drive means and, consequently, of the mixing tools to different speed values, and having movable actuating means, which are accommodated in the housing and which include a switching handle and which serve for actuating the speed switching means.
Such a hand-held mixer of the type defined in the opening paragraph is known, for example from the patent document WO 99/37195 A1. The known hand-held mixer has movable actuating means in the area of a grip portion of the housing, which actuating means are mounted so as to be pivotable about a first axis and are also mounted so as to be pivotable about a second axis perpendicular to the first axis and have a control stick provided as a handle. The speed switching means can be influenced in order to switch to different speeds of the drive means and, consequently, of the mixing tools by a pivotal movement of the actuating means about the first axis, which movement is produced with the aid of the control stick. The disengaging means of the known hand-held mixer can be actuated with the aid of a pivotal movement of the actuating means about the second axis, which movement is produced with the aid of the control stick and causes the mixing tools to be disengaged from the drive means. In this case, the disengaging means are formed by a movably guided slider, which takes the form of a separate part and which is slidable with the aid of the pivotably mounted actuating means. The known hand-held mixer is consequently of a comparatively intricate construction. Furthermore, the operation of the known hand-held mixer is comparatively complicated because the pivotably mounted actuating means must be moved in a first pivoting direction for switching to different speeds of the mixing tools, while the pivotably mounted actuating means must be moved in a second pivoting direction perpendicular to the first pivoting direction for the disengagement of the mixing tools.
It is an object of the invention to preclude the afore-mentioned problems and to provide an improved hand-held mixer and an improved switching means configuration. According to the invention, in order to achieve this object with a hand-held mixer of the type defined in the opening paragraph, the disengaging means and the actuating means including the switching handle are united to form a movable one-piece module, and the module is arranged so as to be movable parallel to only one path of movement both for the actuation of the speed switching means and for the disengagement of the mixing tools from the drive means, and the disengaging means of the module are movable into their disengaging position by means of the switching handle of the actuating means of the module.
The provision of the characteristic features in accordance with the invention results in a particularly simple construction as regards the change-over to different speeds of the mixing tools and the disengagement of the mixing tools from the drive means. Furthermore, this guarantees a simple operation because both the change-over to different speeds of the mixing tools and the disengagement of the mixing tools from the drive means can be effected by moving only one single handle parallel to only one single path of movement.
With a hand-held mixer in accordance with the invention it has proved to be particularly advantageous when, in addition, the actuating means is formed as an arcuate slider, path of movement of the one-piece slider is arcuate, and the disengaging means include two disengaging projections extending transversely to the slider. This has proved to be advantageous in view of an ergonomically most convenient and favorable construction.
The afore-mentioned aspects as well as further aspects of the invention will be apparent from the example of an embodiment described hereinafter and will be elucidated with reference to this example.
The invention will be described in more detail hereinafter with reference to an example of an embodiment which is shown in the drawings but to which the invention is not limited.